Dr. Cosgrove is preparing the Clinic for those changes “by expanding its reach and striving to make caregivers more cost-conscious,” The Journal says. Provisions of the law — such as cutbacks to Medicare payments and the creation of new health insurance marketplaces for consumers — “will test institutions like Cleveland Clinic, as will new forms of payment that swap the fee-for-service model for one intended to reward hospital systems for efficient, high-quality care,” according to the newspaper.

Here are some of the highlights of the Q&A:

WSJ: What risks do the exchanges carry for systems like yours?

Dr. Cosgrove: The forcing function of the ACA is going to drive more coordination of care. It's going to not allow doctors to be necessarily independent; they'll have to be in relationships with hospitals and other providers. All of these things carry big changes and there are risks to them. I think we are in good shape to start with because of our model of care.

WSJ: Are you looking at possible mergers?

Dr. Cosgrove: Absolutely. We have been in discussions with numerous players from one coast to the other. We have yet to execute major M&A. But we are in the prospect of having those discussions.

WSJ: With what types of possible partners?

Dr. Cosgrove: Hospital systems…We have talked to providers generally.

WSJ: There is a lot of concern that health-provider consolidation leads to higher costs. Is that legitimate?

Dr. Cosgrove: We're going to not drive the cost in a particular community. .. .What we're talking about is consolidation on a much bigger scale, across the country. I don't think that anyone would suggest that supermarkets have not reduced the cost of food across the United States or that books from Amazon don't cost less than books do from your local bookstore.

WSJ: You are consolidated in the Cleveland area. Do you use that leverage in negotiating prices with health insurers?

Dr. Cosgrove: Yes, we do. We also consolidate services and drive efficiency of services across this organization. We've consolidated our hospitals. We've consolidated cardiac surgery, pediatrics, rehab, psychiatric care, obstetrics, to bring them together and have higher quality and lower cost, more efficiency.
This and that

Southern exposure: Developer NRP Group of Cleveland plans to build a 300-unit apartment complex in St. Petersburg.

The $55 million project will be named "the Sol" and will be aimed at upscale renters with monthly rates ranging from $800 to $1,800, according to The Tampa Bay Times. Individual units will range from 600 to 1,200 square feet.

NRP bought the land — currently a parking lot — from the newspaper earlier this year for $6 million.

Drilling down: The Marcellus shale has fetched a big new investment.

Reuters reports that Norwegian energy firm Statoil today bought the rights to about 70,000 acres of shale-producing area as part of a plan to increase its North American production by five times by 2020.

Statoil said it paid $590 million for the liquid-rich shale area in the Marcellus formation in Ohio and West Virginia. The company entered the Marcellus in 2008 through a partnership with Chesapeake Energy and has been steadily increasing its acreage through acquisitions.

"A majority of the net acres in this transaction are located in the liquid-rich part of the Marcellus," Statoil said in a statement. "The market for these products is substantially better paying than the current market for dry gas in the U.S."

Reuters says the new area has a risked resource base estimated at 300 million to 500 million barrels of oil equivalent (BOE), and its current equity production is around 5,000 BOE per day. Statoil earlier said that it aimed to increase its production from Marcellus to at least 50,000 BOE per day in 2012 and at least 200,000 BOE per day after 2020.

A good start:The New York Timestakes a look at what it calls “the new face of a national homeless population” — tens of thousands of underemployed and jobless young people between the ages of 18 and 24.

Most cities and states, focusing on homeless families, “have not made special efforts to identify young adults, who tend to shy away from ordinary shelters out of fear of being victimized by an older, chronically homeless population,” The Times says.

However, the paper reports the Obama administration has begun an initiative with nine cities, including Cleveland, to seek out those between 18 and 24 who are without a consistent home address.

The 1983 holiday favorite, shot partly in Cleveland, was one of 25 movies just added to the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress.

The new additions to the registry include Clint Eastwood's “Dirty Harry,” “The Matrix,” the Audrey Hepburn classic “Breakfast at Tiffany's,” the 1964 religious art film “Parable,” the Oscar-winning documentary “The Times of Harvey Milk” and Otto Preminger's courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Murder,” with James Stewart and George C. Scott.

James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress, tells USA Today that the films “are not selected as the 'best' American films of all time, but rather as works of enduring importance to American culture. They reflect who we are as a people and as a nation."